Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2016 2:58 PM
For the year of 2017, data proves that home health agencies will spend more time and money than ever before on training and staffing to improve care quality.
About 77% of agencies plan to spend more money to train on the OASIS next year and 76% plan to spend more to train on the new Home Health Conditions of Participation (CoPs), according to 234 respondents to a question on HHL’s 2017 Trends Survey.
The proposed COPs include a new CoP involving Quality Assurance & Performance Improvement (QAPI), and it will cause agencies to focus on the need to develop a comprehensive quality program. The CoPs are expected to be finalized soon and QAPI is the new CoP of greatest concern, HHL’s 2017 Trends Survey respondents say.
VNS of Wheeling Hospital in Wheeling, W.Va., is one of many agencies planning to spend “considerably more” on quality improvement roles next year.
“With OASIS-C2 beginning January 2017, the changes require that our agency is up to date with this information,” says Dawn Sengewalt, clinical compliance coordinator for the agency. “The same is true with the new CoPs planned for 2017.”
Agencies are taking various steps to improve care quality, as CMS’ many new initiatives are about to take place.
The most common step involves having more QI training next year. About 63% of agencies are planning to do so, according to the 255 respondents to a trends survey question.
In order to prepare for quality initiatives, 49.4% of survey respondents propose to have more quality reviews. While 36.6% plan to change staff roles internally, 35.7% plan to use more data analytics and/or 25.5% require same-day documentation.
One thing to note: In recent years, many agencies already have placed more of a focus on chart review — and while that trend will continue, agencies that stand out in quality will have their QI person do more than that, says Danielle Pierotti, the Visiting Nurse Associations of America’s vice president of quality and performance improvement.
Standout agencies will have a quality employee who breaks down barriers and has real conversations with clinicians about improving quality, Pierotti says.
The following ways are used to improve your quality ratings:
• Dedicate people for quality and education — or at least get someone outsourced to perform the tasks
• Focus on a few measures at a time
• Have QI staff text tips to clinicians
• Strive for OASIS documentation accuracy of 90% or better
• Use CASPER reports
Corridor’s QAPI for Home Health: A Step-by-Step Approach will prepare your agency with a foundation of how to choose Performance Improvement Projects (PIP), how to gather data, how to analyze the data and how to make “real life” enhancements to improve patient care processes and organizational efficiency. Contact a Corridor representative today!
For the full article, please see the January 2, 2017 Home Health Line Edition.
About Corridor
Corridor is the nation’s preferred partner and trusted business advisor to home health and hospice providers, providing quality services and impactful results for 30 years. Focusing on key operational, regulatory and financial challenges, Corridor delivering industry-unique solutions and deep expertise in coding, clinical documentation review, compliance, billing and collections , consulting and provider staff education . At Corridor, we make the business of caring for people Better! For the most important industry updates and news that impacts home health and hospice, please make sure to sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive the latest up-to-date industry information direct to your inbox!
For additional information, please contact Corridor at 1-866-263-3795.
